Nature, Environment and Culture in East Asia

Nature, Environment and Culture in East Asia PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-07-15

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 9004253041

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Since in the current global environmental and climate crisis East Asia will play a major role in negotiating solutions, it is vital to understand East Asian cultural variations in approaching and solving environmental challenges in the past, present, and future. The interdisciplinary volume Nature, Environment and Culture in East Asia. The Challenge of Climate Change, edited by Carmen Meinert, explores how cultural patterns and ideas have shaped a specific understanding of nature, how local and regional cultures develop(ed) coping strategies to adapt to environmental and climatic changes in the past and in the present and how various institutions and representatives might introduce their ideas and agendas in future environmental and climate policies on national levels and in international negotiating systems.

Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia

Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia PDF

Author: Karl L. Hutterer

Publisher: U OF M CENTER FOR SOUTH EAST ASIAN STUDI

Published: 1985-01-01

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 0891480390

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Ecologists have long based their conceptual frameworks in the natural sciences. Recently, however, they have acknowledged that ecosystems cannot be understood without taking into account human interventions that may have taken place for thousands of years. And for their part, social scientists have recognized that human behavior must be understood in the environment in which it is acted out. Researchers have thus begun to develop the area of “human ecology.” Yet human ecology needs suitable conceptual frameworks to tie the human and natural together. In response, Cultural Values and Human Ecology uses the framework of cultural values to collect a set of highly diverse contributions to the field of human ecology. Values represent an important and essential aspect of the intellectual organization of a society, integrated into and ordained by the over-arching cosmological system, and constituting the meaningful basis for action, in terms of concreteness and abstraction of content as well as mutability and permanence. Because of this balance, values lend themselves to the kinds of analyses of ecological relationships conducted here, those that demand a reasonable amount of specificity as well as historical stability. The contributions to Cultural Values and Human Ecology are exceedingly diverse. They include abstract theoretical discussions and specific case studies, ranging across the landscape of Southeast Asia from the islands to southern China. They deal with hunting-gathering populations as well as peasants operating within contemporary nation-states, and they are the work of natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists of Western and Asian origin. Diversity in the backgrounds of the authors contributes most to the varied approaches to the theme of this volume, because differences in cultural background and academic tradition will lead to different research interests and to differences in the empirical approaches chosen to pursue given problems.

Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia

Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia PDF

Author: Karl Hutterer

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2020-08-06

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 0472902296

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Ecologists have long based their conceptual frameworks in the natural sciences. Recently, however, they have acknowledged that ecosystems cannot be understood without taking into account human interventions that may have taken place for thousands of years. And for their part, social scientists have recognized that human behavior must be understood in the environment in which it is acted out. Researchers have thus begun to develop the area of “human ecology.” Yet human ecology needs suitable conceptual frameworks to tie the human and natural together. In response, Cultural Values and Human Ecology uses the framework of cultural values to collect a set of highly diverse contributions to the field of human ecology. Values represent an important and essential aspect of the intellectual organization of a society, integrated into and ordained by the over-arching cosmological system, and constituting the meaningful basis for action, in terms of concreteness and abstraction of content as well as mutability and permanence. Because of this balance, values lend themselves to the kinds of analyses of ecological relationships conducted here, those that demand a reasonable amount of specificity as well as historical stability. The contributions to Cultural Values and Human Ecology are exceedingly diverse. They include abstract theoretical discussions and specific case studies, ranging across the landscape of Southeast Asia from the islands to southern China. They deal with hunting-gathering populations as well as peasants operating within contemporary nation-states, and they are the work of natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists of Western and Asian origin. Diversity in the backgrounds of the authors contributes most to the varied approaches to the theme of this volume, because differences in cultural background and academic tradition will lead to different research interests and to differences in the empirical approaches chosen to pursue given problems.

Recent Social, Environmental, and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies

Recent Social, Environmental, and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies PDF

Author: Merviö, Mika Markus

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2019-11-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1799818098

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East Asian societies continue to react to developments occurring in the Western part of the world as well as influence development elsewhere due to the global reach of East Asian economies and the increased political weight of East Asian societies. These systems have distinctive features often connected with local social and cultural traditions. However, these traditions are constantly being reinterpreted, and the changing meanings attached to them must be taken into account. Recent Social, Environmental, and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies is an essential research book that explores various social, environmental, and cultural issues challenging modern East Asian cultures and their implications on society. Featuring a wide range of topics such as local identity, social risk, and government policy, this book is ideal for researchers, policymakers, sociologists, managers, anthropologists, politicians, diplomats, academicians, and students.

A History of Natural Resources in Asia

A History of Natural Resources in Asia PDF

Author: G. Bankoff

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-08-20

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0230607535

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Much has been written about the wealth of nations, the history of unequal distribution and zones of affluence and deprivation within and between societies. This book explores why some Asian nations are more prosperous than others through an examination of how their interaction with and utilization of resources has changed over the centuries.

Nature in the Global South

Nature in the Global South PDF

Author: Paul Greenough

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2003-08-29

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0822385007

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A nuanced look at how nature has been culturally constructed in South and Southeast Asia, Nature in the Global South is a major contribution to understandings of the politics and ideologies of environmentalism and development in a postcolonial epoch. Among the many significant paradigms for understanding both the preservation and use of nature in these regions are biological classification, state forest management, tropical ecology, imperial water control, public health, and community-based conservation. Focusing on these and other ways that nature has been shaped and defined, this pathbreaking collection of essays describes projects of exploitation, administration, science, and community protest. With contributors based in anthropology, ecology, sociology, history, and environmental and policy studies, Nature in the Global South features some of the most innovative and influential work being done in the social studies of nature. While some of the essays look at how social and natural landscapes are created, maintained, and transformed by scientists, officials, monks, and farmers, others analyze specific campaigns to eradicate smallpox and save forests, waterways, and animal habitats. In case studies centered in the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, and South and Southeast Asia as a whole, contributors examine how the tropics, the jungle, tribes, and peasants are understood and transformed; how shifts in colonial ideas about the landscape led to extremely deleterious changes in rural well-being; and how uneasy environmental compromises are forged in the present among rural, urban, and global allies. Contributors: Warwick Anderson Amita Baviskar Peter Brosius Susan Darlington Michael R. Dove Ann Grodzins Gold Paul Greenough Roger Jeffery Nancy Peluso K. Sivaramakrishnan Nandini Sundar Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing Charles Zerner

Nature and the Orient

Nature and the Orient PDF

Author: Richard H. Grove

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 1036

ISBN-13: 9780195653755

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Discussing diverse aspects of the environmental history of South and Southeast Asia, from a variety of perspectives, it brings together leading experts from the fields of history, history of science, archaeology, geography and environmental studies, and covers a time span from 50,000 BC to the present. Spanning a geographical region from Peshawar on the North-West Frontier to the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia, this book tells the story of the highly complex relationship between people and their environment. Among a multitude of subjects it reports on the latest findings in settlement archaeology, the history of deforestation, climate change, the history of fishing, hunting and shikar, colonial science and forest management, indigenous plant knowledge, the history of famine, the impact of coalmining and the tragic story of India's tragic story of India's tribal communities.

Nature, Culture, and Food in Monsoon Asia

Nature, Culture, and Food in Monsoon Asia PDF

Author: Satoshi Yokoyama

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 9811521131

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The giant Asian monsoon has formed a diverse climate and natural environment. The Asian monsoon climate manifests itself in manifold ways depending not just on the latitude or altitude of an area but also on physical conditions such as topography and vegetation and even the size of its human population. Likewise, the livelihoods of people in the affected area are diverse. This book focuses on nature and agriculture, food, and climate and culture as an excellent framework for understanding the relationship between humans and the environment in complex Monsoon Asia. Through the discussions in this book, what the authors have sought to demonstrate is that the livelihoods in Monsoon Asia demonstrate unique forms in a limited environment, while the Asian monsoon climate has one of the largest movements of any natural phenomenon on a macroscopic scale. These manifest forms are diverse both on a time scale and on a spatial scale and are extremely diversified in limited regions. Such diversity is not only due just to the effects of the natural environment but also results from social and cultural forces. In this area of Monsoon Asia, traditional and religious social norms are becoming entangled with “new” economic and political norms brought in from the outside world by globalization.

Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought

Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought PDF

Author: J. Baird Callicott

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 1438452012

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Seminal essays on environmental philosophy from Indian, Chinese, and Japanese traditions of thought. Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought provides a welcome sequel to the foundational volume in Asian environmental ethics Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought. That volume, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames and published in 1989, inaugurated comparative environmental ethics, adding Asian thought on the natural world to the developing field of environmental philosophy. This new book, edited by Callicott and James McRae, includes some of the best articles in environmental philosophy from the perspective of Asian thought written more recently, some of which appear in print for the first time. Leading scholars draw from the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese traditions of thought to provide a normative ethical framework that can address the environmental challenges being faced in the twenty-first century. Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist approaches are considered along with those of Zen, Japanese Confucianism, and the contemporary philosophy of the Kyoto School. An investigation of environmental philosophy in these Asian traditions not only challenges Western assumptions, but also provides an understanding of Asian philosophy, religion, and culture that informs contemporary environmental law and policy.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia PDF

Author: Peter Boomgaard

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2006-12-14

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1851094245

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From Angkor Wat to Agent Orange, Southeast Asia An Environmental History tells the story of some of the most dramatic effects humans have had on the natural and developed environment anywhere in the world and examines the ways in which environmental factors have helped shape the culture, politics, and societies of the region. Ever since the first humanlike creatures arrived some 80,000 years ago, Southeast Asia's varied and challenging environment has helped shape the course of human destiny. From the importance of its spices to 17th-century Europeans to the jungle canopies that sheltered Communist insurgents throughout much of the 20th century, the region's environment has often proven decisive in human affairs. Packed with key facts and analysis, Southeast Asia provides an expert guide to the complex interplay between human societies and the environment from Burma to the Philippines and from Vietnam to Indonesia. How has the environment helped shape politics, trade, and religion? What are the likely consequences of ongoing deforestation for Southeast Asia's people and animals? Part of ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series, this work charts the region's environmental history from prehistory to modern times and is essential reading for students and experts alike.